The 3 STEPS To Becoming A MILLIONAIRE | Kevin O'Leary

It's never work when you're pursuing your ambition. Every day, you're going to get thrown a ton of shed is going to hit you. One of the biggest tricks of motivation is if you actually solve a big problem first, when you have all the energy at the beginning of the day, it actually motivates you to keep going. I think it's important to keep that routine. You got to get up early, work out a little bit, and start the day.

As is usually the case, this week's episode of Ask Mr. Wonderful was inspired by a question. This one is from Zoe. Really intriguing, love that name by the way. Zoe writes, "I watched your Ask Mr. Wonderful episode when you explained how you made your first million. I liked the story, but it seems to me you surrounded yourself with a lot of successful people that helped along the way. I just graduated college, and I'm contemplating my next move, but after watching that, I know I need to work for myself too, so I have to start my own business. My question is this: What are the characteristics of successful people? I'd like to know and maybe adopt these myself."

What I like about your question is you basically are talking about self-betterment. You're trying to learn from the characteristics of people that prove themselves to be successful. I think that's fantastic, but I would also say that it's important to think when you're starting a business, if you're going to take that entrepreneurial route, that you need to build a team. Most successful companies are aggregations of teams where one person's skill set augments the others.

In other words, what I've learned—and a lot of people think one person can do it all—you can't. Generally, people have something they're really, really good at, and they also have a huge deficit. In my case, I love sales and marketing, but I hate logistics. I hate making widgets. But I can't have a business if I don't make widgets, so I had to find a great widget guy and that kind of thing. As it turned out, it was a woman.

At the end of the day, you need a partner that can build that team. I would highly recommend if you start a business, you want to find somebody that you really like in terms of their skill set—not that they're a friend of yours, but someone whose skill sets are fantastic.

So, I'm going to walk you through what I think really matters. You know, about what these, let’s call it, the five things of successful people. If you go look at any successful entrepreneur, even a politician, a preacher, or a soldier—whatever—what makes them successful?

Number one on the hit parade: ambition. The desire to go somewhere, the myopic focus that there's something you're here for a reason and you want to get that done. Whatever that is for you. It's never work when you're pursuing your ambition. It's just who you are; it's your soul, it's your being. I think that's what makes great entrepreneurs or great leaders. They want to get up in the morning, they want to do what their ambition is telling them they have to do. Ambition is a drive; it's a vision. It sounds like you might have that, Zoe, which would be very interesting.

Number two—and this kind of is a little intuitive, if you think about it—you have to care about yourself. You have to have self-esteem; you have to believe in yourself even if others around you don't, even if they doubt you, even if they think that you're wrong. You can't have that feeling about yourself; you have to have your own perception that you are right. I'm not saying, you know, belligerent, but that you are worth every ounce of your being and that you respect yourself that way.

Now, it doesn't mean you can't listen to other ideas, but you have to have a vision, a direction. If you don't know where you're going, Zoe, no one will ever follow you there. I've said that countless times, and it remains true today as it will a thousand years from now. People want to follow those that understand the road, the direction, and you have to have that.

Let me be trite about it. The kind of food you eat, the exercise, how you look, how you feel about yourself, how you dress, how you present yourself—in the last few years, I've started to say to myself, "Well, gee, maybe I shouldn't, when I'm walking outside, I should have some sunblock on." That sounds crazy, no? But I want to feel good about myself, so I'm using, you know, a shout out to my sponsor this week, Tiege Hanley. I use their products because they don't have a lot of perfume. They have zero perfume in them. I don't like that smell, and I like their products.

We talk about what it takes to be successful—taking care of yourself and looking good is important, and I care about that. Tiege Hanley is a skincare program, but it's not complicated. The stuff isn't overly perfume-y, I don't like that. If I'm going to spend some time outdoors, like I am today, and I just finished shaving, I've got to protect my skin. I don't want to get fried, and I've got the dome of desire, I've got to cover that up because that can get burnt really easily.

So, I use the AM from Tiege Hanley because it's 20 SPF—so sun protection and a moisturizer. You just apply it really easily; it doesn't smell. You know, I want to look good forever, if you know what I mean. I don't want to get too wrinkly, and you don't want a lot of sunburn for that. So that feels great. Look, try these products. I use them; the soap's fantastic, the scrubs and all that. I mean, the whole package ships to you, it's really easy; it's a subscription service.

Look, what can I say? I like it. They've got a great deal for my followers, so click on the link, try them, and, yeah, it looks good, and I like it because when I finish shaving and I put on whatever I'm putting on, I feel I'm ready to go present myself. Sounds corny; you wouldn't believe how important that is, particularly if you're going to stand up or go in front of a lot of people. You want to feel good about yourself.

Number three: there's no real order to these in terms of weight, although I would say ambition is always going to be the top of the list. But a willingness to learn and listen—you can't believe how many people can't shut up and listen. I learned that from one of my women's CEOs years ago. She told me, "Kevin, you seem to spend 66 percent of your day talking and only 33 and a third percent, you know, listening." Reverse it; change it because you'll learn a lot more.

They become far more effective if you just shut your mouth and listen to what's going on around you, and she was right. Today, I really try and balance that out—two-thirds listening, you know, one-third talking. The willingness to learn comes from the desire to absorb information, and it's really important. With that comes something that is extremely hard for entrepreneurs to do: have patience. That's number four.

You've got to have patience. You have to hold back; you have to wait and see what happens. You have to let things develop. You can't just jam everything; it doesn't work that way. You learn that through experience, and it's so important that you understand you must be patient with people, you must be patient with plans, you must be patient with everything. You can't get what you want right away; it just doesn't work that way.

People that are patient are incredibly effective because in the long run, they get stuff done. You have to kind of sit back and assess things. That's what patience is—it's an assessment of your situation. I want to tell you something that is really important, and it's number five. You are going to fail in life; everybody does. Something you want, you can't achieve. You fail.

You must be able to start again. You must learn from the mistake, and it sounds so obvious, but you can't believe how many people say, "Oh, I tried it; it didn't work, and I just never pursued another opportunity again." Great leaders, great entrepreneurs, great people learn from their mistakes, but they don't let it get them down.

Great, great, great successful people are always saying, "It was a horrific outcome, really big mistake, lost, you know, 100 million dollars if you're a CEO or something. It was really bad, but I realized the mistake I made, and I started again." That kind of goes with the idea that you must be patient to be successful. If you're an entrepreneur, you only need one great idea that takes you from being an operator to an investor, and that's solving someone's problem in the world and doing it millions of times over.

That's how great companies are created. But along the way, you are going to have to use all five of these elements to keep you moving forward. So, let's summarize again. It was ambition—ambition is the driver, it's the engine, it's the machine that pushes you forward. Self-care, to feel good about yourself, whatever it takes to put you as being a fan of you—like making sure that you do not— you must appreciate yourself; that's very important.

Number three: you've got to have a willingness to learn, and that means shutting up and listening. Four: you have to have patience. And five, very important, the ability to fail and start again. I guarantee you, Zoe, that you will find all five of these in any successful person you meet. If you want to take on any of these attributes, it will be a good thing for you.

I'm going to share a little trick with you and all viewers. You see these pencils here on my desk? I've got these all over the place; I got probably thousands of these. And I have this—this is the lowest tech thing you've ever seen—a sticky note.

During the day, here's one I just, this morning, I write down things I have to get done. I know it's slow tech; there are all kinds of software that can do this for you. I don't care; I like pulling a pencil and simply writing down, "Oh yeah, I got to get that thing done," and just making that note. I learned this from a very successful person years and years ago: my mother.

This note just sits here all day, and at night, if I haven't finished—and usually there's three or four I haven't done—I look at it and say, okay, tomorrow I will get this done before anything else. Before, you know, I go online, before I read anything, you know, I go watch television, before I make any phone calls or texts or anything, I'm going to get this thing done. And I stick it on the mirror, on the right-hand side.

Number one: record baseline for track 15. Alright, so I found a piece of music that I recorded back in '89. I'm working on a documentary about watch dials, which I think you're going to find interesting when I finally get it finished. But it needs the music so the editors can work with the beat of the music, and this thing I recorded in '89 does not have any bass, and I didn't play bass back then; now I do.

So, I'm going to go back in the studio and lay down the bass track for track 15. [Music] Number two: reconcile foreign currency. I have investments over in Europe, and each month I reconcile to the currency to figure out how much of the performance was gained or lost by the change in the currency rates. So, I want to do that this morning. It's important to get that done for last month because, you know, if you don't have that information, you can't make moves.

And number three: tape questions four and five for Tax Hive. Tax Hive is a new business I've gotten involved in as an investor and also as a spokesperson. This is a company that helps small businesses with their taxes and payrolls—very important in my portfolio companies. So, I'm recording some messages, and four and five have to be done today. So, I'm going to go in the studio and record those.

Great! Take that as the one before I do anything else today. These three puppies are going to get done, and that is how you get super productive, and you don't let anything distract you. You don't take a phone call, you don't do emails, you don't do anything. You get the things done that you made the priorities the night before. Do it every day; try it, it's fantastic!

Look at this: low-tech, low-tech. You write it down on a piece of paper, stick it on the mirror. Come on, it works! You can't believe how productive you become with this simple trick. It's incredible; it's absolutely amazing; it just drives you forward because you're getting it done, you're getting it done, you're getting it done, and you're doing it day after day after day. I don't stop on weekends; it's every frigging day. I do it every single day, and they can be all kinds of different things, but they’re things you gotta get done.

It could be something you're doing with your second significant other; it could be something you're doing in arts; it could be something you're doing for business; it doesn't matter. It's one of those things. Try that trick; it's probably the best thing you can learn from this week's episode.

Anyway, so I love the question. Thank you very much. Until next time, I want to do a little rant about staying motivated because it's not easy. It's not easy to stay motivated, particularly in these crazy times. I mean, we've had you talk about COVID and, you know, not even being in the office and working from home all these months. It's been nuts.

The key to motivation is routine. Now, that may sound boring and mundane, but it's not. If you get into a healthy routine—and that includes a lot of things—like, for me, it's getting up early, you know, working out 45 minutes to an hour every day, and then really into the routine of taking care of yourself too.

Now, this video, as many others, is being sponsored by Tiege Hanley, and I want to tell you about them. Yeah, exactly, Tiege baby! But the whole idea with Tiege Hanley is that men's skin care is something that's kind of new. A lot of men didn't care about their skin, but as you age and as you expose yourself to the sun and your skin starts drying out, and you're working out a lot and stuff, you've got to care about your skin.

So, you get a box, right? You're in a subscription service, very, very simple, some products. Hey, Muffy! So look, for example, here's a couple that I use all the time. The deal about going outside is in the morning, just put a little SPF 20 on with moisturizer; that really helps.

And the one I use all the time to take makeup off is the wash because it's got a little pumice thing going on in there. So, I use this wash at night, and I use it also in the morning. And so, you know, there's nothing you can do about that; you've got to put that powder on; otherwise, your skin's too shiny for the camera.

It's a trick of television, but I've been using it for years and years and years. So, my big faves are protection with moisturizer, 20 SPF, and the wash. And the reason I let them, you know, sponsor my podcast and my YouTube stuff is I use the products. I do not talk about stuff I don't use.

So, Tiege Hanley—check them out. If you're a guy, it's really great stuff. And, of course, when I talk to these Tiege Hanley guys, I always say, "Hey, listen. What about my followers? Let’s give them a special offer every time you sponsor one of these videos." So, if you click on the first description, you'll get a free toiletry bag. You can keep all this stuff in, and I travel with this stuff; I take it everywhere with me.

Let's get back to motivation. So, routine is part of motivation. Every day, you're going to get thrown a ton of [__] that's going to hit you, particularly if you're an entrepreneur. Even if you're just working in a job, you're going to get emails and texts about—nobody says, "Hey, you're doing a great job. I just want to send you an email." They say, "Here's five problems I'm having right now, and here’s the storm I'm in today; go fix it." That's generally 99 percent of your communications.

So, when you're working, you have to kind of categorize what you're going to deal with first. Now, to stay motivated, here's a little trick that I've used: Start your day with the biggest problem. When you've got all your energy, take it right out of the gate. Whatever it is, it's going to be some horrific problem you got to deal with. Get it done first. Generally speaking, there's going to be five to seven things you have to do every day.

You won't get them all done every week and every day, but you want to take the top three and nail them. And the trick to that is to do nothing else till you solve those problems. That's a big trick. I learned this years ago. I actually post this stuff the night before, a little sticky note you know, right on the mirror; it's very, very useful.

So, what I do every night is I take a little MC Squares—you know that product? That's one of my Shark Tank deals. Wonderful company. And I write down the things I got to get done the next morning. There’s no tech here; I actually write it down, stick it on the mirror, get up in the morning, you know, work out, come back for the shower, start nailing down those things.

I always have my phone with me, so if I can start working on one of those things when I'm shaving, I'll call the guy up, and I'll be shaving, getting it done. One of the biggest tricks of motivation is if you actually solve a big problem first when you have all the energy at the beginning of the day, it actually motivates you to keep going—no question about it.

Now, the other issue you've got to deal with motivation is be able to take a minute off. You know, sometimes when I'm just fried, frazzled—it could be two in the afternoon. This is a trick; you just go sit in a chair and do something completely different. Listen to some tunes, take a snooze, read a book; it has nothing to do with the stuff you're doing during the day.

Now, the people in the Mediterranean know this trick; they call it a siesta. They always take a snooze at one to two, and the food they eat is really great. Which leaves me a great segue into the next piece: Do not eat shitty food. You know, people say, "Oh, it's too expensive to eat good food." Not so! You really, really don't want to eat crap.

Crap drags you down. Now, what's crap? Look, everybody likes to snack, but you can't eat crap, and you know what I'm talking about—overly fatty, too much salt, too much sugar, too much snacking, too many chocolates—all that stuff. You can indulge a little bit, but your core base of the three meals you eat during the day has to be good food. You cannot run the body with crap food; it just doesn't work, and you will learn this pretty damn fast.

Now that also means I like to drink wine. You got to drink it in moderation, so I have a little rule for myself: I never drink before I go on television; I never drink until four o'clock. Why? I'm involved in the financial markets, so they're open till four. I never drink till four o’clock. Usually, I don't even drink until about five when I have my first glass of Montrachet, which is a white, beautiful wine, or Chardonnay—my own wines, obviously. I like to do that.

And then for dinner, I'll have a glass or two of red. So, maybe I'm talking about three glasses here. Now, for a lot of people, that's too much. But you've got to really be careful on how much alcohol you consume—not just for the booze; the calories are a [__] you're talking about 160 calories for an eight-ounce glass of white wine, sometimes 220 for a red depending on what it is and how sweet or dry it is.

But just think about that: three glasses of wine, you're talking almost a thousand calories in some cases. You don't want to do that. Now, if you're going to drink, call it 800 calories—that means you've got to work out in the morning for almost an hour and a half to burn that off. Otherwise, you're going to gain weight.

So, alcohol is something I love, but you want to stay motivated—nothing really drags you down more than gaining weight, watching that scale move up. I'll tell you what I really love to do: After I work out, after I've had my shower, I weigh myself. And if I'm right where I was the day before, I'm loving it. I haven't gained any weight. I'm not trying to lose weight; I just don't want to gain any.

Another motivational factor. Now, here's something else. One of the big challenges over the whole COVID stick was losing touch with people, you know, even your own family. It was tough; it was a really tough time because generally you have, you know, compadres out there that used to hang out with, maybe see once a month, once a week, went up for business dinner—whatever—all that stuff shut down for the majority of people.

So, what I really made sure I started doing, and I got into this last March, is each evening I would touch base with two friends. I text and say, "Hey, give a minute to talk," and we just communicate. Staying in touch with my network and some of these people are business associates; it's just that I haven't talked to them in a while.

I’ll just call them up and say, "Hey, listen, just want to check and see what's cooking," talk about the industry if it's in television or one of my Shark Tank deals. I want to eat, you know, my businesses—like, you know, something I've invested in—just to touch base with the CEO for only a couple of minutes. But I find that's very motivational in the sense that it keeps you connected in the network. You're still communicating with people.

You know, there's a lot of raw books about motivation and, you know, patent-like stuff—all this military discussion—I'm not into that. I'm not against it; I'm just saying in terms of things that you find to motivate you, they have to be things you can build into a routine. You don't just drag off the bookshelf after three months of being depressed or something. You got to get into the daily routine of keeping yourself motivated, and I'm telling you, communicating with other people is a big factor in that.

Now, something else to think about also—and this really speaks to the whole COVID lockdown—I try and find a way to be able to get outside and walk for 45 minutes. I didn't say run; I already worked out in the morning, I got that piece down. I'm talking about just getting outside and walking—walking 10 blocks, 12 blocks—whatever it is. If you have a dog, whatever, take the dog for a walk—very important.

If you have to wear a mask, I understand it, but just getting out; otherwise, you get this crazy feeling after a week of being inside. And, you know, it doesn't matter where you are; even if it's in cold weather, put on a jacket, get outside. I do that every day, even if it's really crappy weather; I just get out there—part of the routine.

And when does that happen? Sometimes it's the break I'm taking at two o'clock in the afternoon. I just go for a walk. It doesn't mean you can't work when you're walking. You put your earbuds in or whatever you use, and you make a couple of calls; you're outside. It's just keeping you motivated to keep doing stuff, and you know you think to yourself, "I'm looking forward to my walk again." Part of the routine, this is the key.

You know, there's another trick I use. Some goals take much longer; it's not something you're going to get done in a day. It could be three months—whatever it is. Maybe it's you want to break in with a new client, or maybe you want to achieve some goal that you know you're a guitar player, you're a painter, or something that you want to achieve.

You might talk about the yin and yang side; play guitars. You see some guitars hanging up around here? Let's say I want to learn a new riff, a really complex lead; something in Steely Dan, which is really tough—that might take me a week or two to really nail it. So, you know, I can get through the whole thing perfectly, and then you got to keep practicing it; otherwise, you'll forget. You'll forget the whole thing; you'll forget the riff.

But the point is, if you're going to get there, set up a reward for yourself. Maybe you say, "Okay, if I can play that perfectly, I'm going to buy myself another guitar." Now, I'm guilty of that because I got like 35 guitars. But it's kind of one of those things that you reward yourself by.

And the other one in deals for me, when I work on a big deal—like something, a company that I'm starting up and I eventually take it public—that could take four, five, six years. Or I do a big financing; what do I do? I always do the same thing: I buy a new watch. I got a lot of watches, and you know why I do that? Because I remember that deal with that watch.

So that watch becomes part of that thing that I rewarded myself for. Now, the only problem with it is, watches aren't cheap, but I buy good watches so they appreciate in value. And after you buy about five, you don't need any more, but I keep buying watches. It's sort of like a little bit of a disease, but I love buying watches.

And for most of the manufacturers now, know I would need a red band because that's what I wear on television. So, I got to go through the whole hassle of finding a perfect fitting red band. Now, I don't own any of Rubber B; they're not a sponsor, but I only use Rubber B because the integration with the watch is perfect—just a little sidebar there.

But that's part of my motivational trick. Now, there's a watch I want to get; it's a tourbillon; it's made by FP Journe. It's a vertical tourbillon—very, very rare. And whoa, is it expensive! The other problem is they probably are only going to make 10 of them.

Now, I cannot buy that watch for myself until I achieve a great financial outcome in one of my deals. So, that motivates me to go get something done. Now, in this case, I'm very optimistic about a certain deal that I'll probably be selling in a couple of months. And when that happens, what am I going to reward myself with? That FP Journe tourbillon. Now, I know that sounds crazy, but in my mind, that's a goal, and that watch will always be associated with that deal.

And I'm working on that deal right now; I'm working on it every day. Sometimes I'm working on it at midnight; you know, it's just one of those things that motivates me as an investor/entrepreneur. But I know when I achieve success—bingo! Oh, I'm going to love that!

Okay, another motivational hack: Don't do everything yourself. You just won't be successful. You can't do everything on your own because you don't have 100 percent skill set; nobody does. You've got to find partners; you've got to find allies; you have to find compadres that you're going to work with, particularly in business.

You know, all of my deals now, I never do them alone; I form a team. It will often seat a company together; we're investors together, and we work together towards success. I do that all the time, generally twice a year. But I wrote about a lot of this stuff. I never plugged my books, but these have been best sellers: "Kevin O'Leary: The Cold Hard Truth." I like it; it took me forever to write.

I mean, it's hard work, right? People think writing is quick. This thing took me like a year and a half. Then I wrote a follow-up, "Family, Kids, and Money." A lot of the things I'm talking about are in these books. Get them on Amazon if you want; they're interesting. But it's from the perspective of making mistakes, learning from them, not making those mistakes again—that kind of thing.

So motivating yourself to engage with people—people enrich your lives. Even people you don't like to work with that you work with enrich your lives. They give you a different perspective, a different set of eyes in investing—it's very important.

You know, people ask me, "Why do you have advisors that you work with?" I say, "Because I want to hear their perspective on my investments. I want to hear what they think." If all you do is listen to yourself, you'll make lots and lots of mistakes because you won't take those challenges; you won't take risks the same way. But you've got to hear from other people.

So, motivation is about keeping a network of people that help you motivate yourself—very important. One more motivational hack for you; this is a good one. Someone taught this to me years ago: Make your goal public. In other words, tell a lot of people about it, which forces you into the commitment.

Broadcast it! "I am going to achieve this; I'm going to do that; I'm going to get this done." You know, it even could be weight loss; "I'm going to lose five pounds." Whatever it is, broadcast it, and all of a sudden you own it because everybody's expecting you to deliver it. It becomes part of your own personal accomplishments—it's a hack that really works, and you continue to broadcast it because you're committed to it, because others are going to say, "Hey, you said you were going to lose five pounds. You said you were going to do this deal. Are you going to invest in that? Are you going to learn how to play that riff? Or you were going to paint that painting, or you were going to read that book—did you do it?"

Believe me, when others call you out on it, it really motivates you. Try it; it definitely works. When you set a series of goals up, if you're going to do your five things a day, make sure at least three of them are things that interest you, and two are things you didn't want to do but you have to. If all you have are tasks you hate, it's really hard to stay motivated.

So you've got to blend them together. For me, it's usually five a day, three of which I really want to do, and two really suck. But I get them done anyway. You're always going to have things you don't want to do—you have to do—you've got to call this guy or call this person, whatever you have to put in there. But blend it in with some stuff you want to do, you know what I mean?

The other day, I wanted to make crepe flambé. I love to be a chef, and I love to cook, and I'm pretty good at it. And I was thinking I'd stick that in with two calls that I really didn't want to make about business. So I said, "I'll do one call, pre-crepe flambé, and one afterwards." You know what I'm saying? I kind of forced myself into it; it was something in the middle I really wanted to do. And by the way, my crepes were spectacular. They were spectacular! My trick is Cointreau.

Anyways, I don't want to get into a cooking lesson, but the whole—see, I'm interested in that. I'm motivated to tell you about it. That's my whole point: things that interest you give you lots of energy.

Things you don't want to do, you keep procrastinating, which is horrible. You got to deal with the tough stuff too, but mix it up. Mix it up.

Hi, Mr. Wonderful here, and I want to talk about this week's episode of Ask Mr. Wonderful. It's inspired by an email question from Atlanta. I'm going to read it to you; you'll see what I mean.

"Hi, my name is Elizabeth from Atlanta. I'm one of your Instagram followers from way back in the early Shark Tank days, and I've recently subscribed to your YouTube channel with the whole Ask Mr. Wonderful thing. You recently posted an Insta pic with your white underwear air-drying in your kitchen on hangers—how gross! And the whole place was a mess. What's with that? Are you going crazy in quarantine or something? And how are you living your life these days?"

Okay, Elizabeth, now just one second on the underwear. Here are the aforementioned underwear. These are not just any underwear; these are Swiss Zimmerli underwear. There's very few things I really, really indulge myself in, but these puppies, these Zimmerli's, are made from Egyptian cotton—absolutely beautiful, 78 bucks a pair. They're not cheap! They don't get any better when it comes to men's underwear.

Now, I wash them in a delicate cycle in the washing machine, but there's no way I'm putting them in the dryer. It's going to wreck this beautiful band and take the zing out of the Zimmerli, if you know what I mean. And these things are very package-friendly. You want to keep them soft and cuddly.

So, there's method to my madness. I'm not crazy hanging those things up to air dry. That's why I do it; that's how I always do it. I never put the Zimmerli in the dryer; that would just kill them! That's crazy. And, yeah, the place is a mess—I agree—but it's organized chaos. I know where everything is here; I don’t want to move it; I’ll lose it if I move it. I want to keep it in the same place.

It's not messy; it's laid out aggressively. That's what it is. And look, yeah, I'm in quarantine like everybody else, but I'm doing a lot of stuff during the day. So, I love the question.

Now that we've got the Zimmerli's out of the way, I'm going to walk you through a day in my life. I like the idea of a day in the life of quarantine—what's that like? So, let's check it out. Here we go.

[Music]

Okay, it's early morning, but the routine is always the same. I get up at around—let's have a look at the time here—yeah, six o'clock. I think it's important to keep that routine. You got to get up early, work out a little bit, and start the day. And here we go.

You know, I don't endorse products that I don't use personally. I just don't want to do it. If I'm going to get a sponsor, which I have, you know, on my YouTube channel, I'm going to use the product. I want to know all about it, and I want it to work for me. Why would I endorse it for somebody else if I don't try it on myself? You got to eat your own cooking. I really believe that, particularly when it comes to throwing your name behind something.

Like in the wine business: I drink my wines; I make my wines. Same thing on any product I use or I show or I should put on a sponsor here. I want to know all about it. Now, I'm like any other guy—I really wasn't into skin care for a long time, but I am now, and I’ll tell you why. I use a lot of makeup—a ton of makeup.

This stuff is powder for television, and generally I put it on, and I got a lot of real estate. You don't want to be shiny on TV, so I'm putting this stuff on my, you know, my golden dome, a lot, and a ton of it under my eyes like this and around my nose and here where it gets shiny. If you see people that are on TV, they look great on the camera; when you see them in person, they come off the set, they look like they're dead. They got so much makeup packed on.

But that makeup's really crap for you; it gets in your pores, and it agitates like crazy. So, I got into a product—you know, Tiege Hanley. It's a skincare system for men; they send you all the stuff you need. You don't have to know anything about all the different products, although you get plenty of them, and they tell you what order to use them.

The wash is a basic wash for your face—morning or night for me—and the scrub takes all the crap out of my pores. So, let me show you how this stuff works. The wash is very simple; all you need is just a little warm water, put some on your hands, put it on your face, really refreshing, and then you just wash it off with water.

And I'll show you how to use the scrub—the scrub is amazing! Now, you still don't have the dirt out; that's the first step. This is the stuff I really love—the scrub—it's got a little, you know, little particles in it or whatever, and this gets out the makeup and the dirt.

Of course, I've asked the Tiege Hanley people for a special deal for my viewers, and you'll find out more if you click on the link in the description. Skin care for men—who knew? I'm using it now because I want to keep looking like Mr. Wonderful.

On the exercise bike now—this I've been doing for years; this is like a total routine research. I read it on the bike today—I'm doing MindMed. I'm an investor in this company. Remember, this is micro-dosing psychedelics as medicine, so I'm going to be interviewing the CEO later, but I want to read the latest research.

So, get on the bike, fire it up. I just feel if you're going to be in self-isolation, you got to stick to the routine. I mean, that's what it takes. Some people say, “Have coffee before the work.” I say, “No, work out; clean; don't jack yourself up.”

So right now, we're just going to let that heat, and then when it comes to a boil, we're going to leave the eggs in for exactly nine minutes and then plunge them into ice-cold water. Yeah, it's a lot of work, but I care about how my hard-boiled egg looks. Frankly, I don't want to see that dark blackness on the edge of the yolk, so I'm going to avoid that by doing this.

Out of the fridge into cold water and then let it heat and boil to nine minutes. There, I've let you in on a great secret—Chef Wonderful always wants a perfectly cooked hard-boiled egg; that's how you do it.

[Music]

Oh, whoa, whoa! Let me give you a little tour of the facility. Yeah, I know everybody calls it messy, but you know there's functionality going on here. Yeah, I got some laundry drying there too, you know? But bottom line is, I broadcast out of here. This is my social media kind of kitchen center—you can see all the equipment there.

But I also broadcast to the networks. I have a network camera, and I stuck that in a bedroom, so we'll walk down here and have a look at it. Yeah, I got short pants on and a suit top—why? Because I'm about to broadcast to a network, they're not going to see that I'm wearing flip-flops.

But this is how this place works. So, this is a bedroom; you can see the bed; it's a mess; it's got a bunch of stuff on it. Lighting—I'm bouncing off a white ceiling for a good image. That’s a network camera; that’s actually controlled out of New York.

They can control it, so can I. So this is actually a full network broadcast facility. This is the computer that controls it, and also lets it be controlled remotely. This is the green screen background, so there's the Shark Tank set.

And I could use that as a background if I'm doing a shoot for, let's say, ABC on Shark Tank. But let me show you some other options. Let's say I'm going to do a broadcast and talk about financial services. I can go up to where these images are stored and say, "Okay, let's do—let's talk about the exchange-traded fund industry," and that's a background of a company I have an interest in called O Shares.

And then we can go and look at something maybe a little more eclectic. Let's find something like, oh, here's Dubai. This is the tallest building in the world, so I could be broadcasting with a Dubai background.

So, let's see what that looks like. So, here I am; I'm going to be in Dubai, and so I'm going to go to the screen here, turn off the bars. So now we have the feed of the camera, and I want to adjust—if you see me holding this little camera, I'm shooting with—but here's the joystick to let me adjust the direction of the camera the way New York would be doing.

And you can see that's moving, and so I'm going to center it, and then I'm going to zoom in so that I only have a background. See how that works? Kind of cool! Go up a little bit because my head's cut off there. There we go, there we go!

So there I am in Dubai, and you can see another image of that, and the lighting there is a little soft, so I could change the lighting as well. Watch this; I'm going to go over, and because the lighting was set for social media norms off the ceiling, I'm going to go direct LED lighting by just tilting these.

Give you an idea of how the kind of network thing works. So that's a straight-on lighting; you can see where I'm going to be sitting there, and that background we're talking about. Now look at the shot—setting up for the network, there you go! And you see how much better; I kind of see it in this screen down here too—see that?

And then they would further—with that camera over there—they would further enhance it or change it or change the coloration of it or zoom in, zoom out. I could do it with this joystick right here, but the network can do it too, and that is how a broadcast works.

That is how you can broadcast anywhere in the world. I'm doing three of them today, so I think that's very efficient. You know, it's a little funky chicken in terms of taking over a bedroom, but you know, it’s part of this— I call it a studio.

Really, and then when I feel like it, which I love to do, is if I'm going to lay down a track for actually for this show you're going to watch, I'm going to write some music tonight and I'm going to mix it into this 24 track recorder. I’ve got three different guitars here.

And if you're into music, you know that this is a really interesting guitar—it's a nylon guitar on an electric body—a golden one, which is a really interesting manufacturer. Here's a classic '69 Telecaster; I've talked about how tough this is—such an unforgiving [__] to play it, but it has such an amazing sound.

This is an old-school drum machine, but I also use a software product called Easy Drummer, which is absolutely amazing! You basically lay down your tracks—some of you who are into this, and you can actually, you know, write a drum sequence and play it and sort of say, "Well, do I like it or not?"

I'm thinking it's sort of, "Yeah, kind of a jazzy thing—this is going to be the groove for this piece I'm doing for this show, for this episode, Ask Mr. Wonderful." I'm still working on it; I like to mic my own amp because I want the room tone. A lot of guys will go right into the board; I don't agree.

You really want to, you know, think about old school when you're talking about this. I'm using this really interesting Tascam analog to digital; I mean, it's easy to use, and it's really great for laying down. It has a Bluetooth interface, so you can put Easy Drummer to it.

For those times when I just want to hang, here's the balcony—in fact, Damon John came to visit me; we did some social distancing. We sat about six feet apart, and we had masks on, and we just watched the ocean roll by like you are right now.

Oh, one last thing: a lot of cooking—a lot of cooking—a lot of frozen goods. But today, I'm going to probably do a salad with some tortellini. Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking about. And I put my whites on to cook, just for the old routine—the old Chef Wonderful thing.

But it's a little messy, but you know. And, yeah, my Japanese fishing pants are drying. I don't like to put those in the dryer either; I want them because they're silk, and they're beautiful, and I wear these Japanese fishing pants pretty well every day.

Oh, and I love to have some orchids—they just, you know, they last a long time, and they're beautiful. These are the new love pop greeting cards, which are actually bouquets of flowers for Mother's Day. I'm going to be sending my wife one of these. Kind of cute.

But Bohanna, which is another Shark Tank product, these are actually water lily seeds that pop—way better than popcorn. I'm going to be selling these on QVC in the next couple of days. But that's kind of a tour of what's cooking, so to speak.

Oh yeah, Benji Lock—remember those? Another Shark Tank deal. That's a lock that you can actually open with your fingertip. Let’s grab one. This thing is one look—I just got it; the CES Innovation Award—check it out. Third year in a row, Benji Lock.

So, it's actually a lock that you can program your finger into. I'm not sure if this one I have programmed yet, but we'll see. Yeah, yeah, see? It opens right! That opened with my thumb. I probably put two of my index and my thumb finger into it. I just think it's just a terrific. I use it on the bike all the time.

Oh yeah, this is a cool bike—these guys in Miami made me; I don't own the company. I paid for it, but I just love it. It's a Mr. Wonderful; I cruise all over Miami in this thing. Yeah, it’s great! And, of course, I've got my M95 mask right here. You got the tour—you definitely got the tour!

Alright guys, I got to get back to work. I hope you like that tour. I know it's messy, but it's organized chaos. Hi everybody, I really hope you enjoyed that kind of snapshot of a day in the life of a quarantined dude.

Now, the thing about being in quarantine or isolated like this is you can't let it turn into Groundhog Day. You got to do different stuff; you have to shake up the routine a little bit. Yeah, it's important to work out and focus on the things you've got to get done every day, but you've got to have a little difference to it.

Maybe take a bike ride, run, or something—just get out for a while. Do whatever you have to do to keep it interesting. Now, if you're an entrepreneur—and I know lots of them—you got to stay focused on your customers right now. You want to make sure they remember who you are and your employees.

That's the DNA of your business. And today, we have all these wonderful technology tools to use. This is what's so unique about this pandemic; we have some really interesting ways to stay in touch with each other—even if we’re isolated—and that's important for business—no question about that.

But the key is you got to enjoy your life every day of it, even though sometimes it gets a little crazy. Seriously. Anyway, look, my friends, stay safe, and remember we're all in this together. You've heard that a thousand times, but it's so true.

And don't forget this: Wash your hands. Until next time, Mr. Wonderful. And by the way, stay wonderful! If you liked that video, wait till you see my next one! Don't forget to click right over here and subscribe.